BOULDER — There are times, Stephane Nembot admits, when the whole notion seems too far-fetched even for him: a Cameroonian on a Pac-12 offensive line. That revelation usually hits him when the awkward footwork required of an offensive tackle seems like dancing with cape buffaloes, when he’s too proud to show his frustration to perplexed line coach Gary Bernardi.

Yes, Nembot gets it. Five years after coming to America without knowing a word of English, after sleeping on the floor in a cramped room in Maine, after four high schools in three months, after one year of prep football, trying to protect Colorado quarterback Connor Wood is a lot to ask.

“I thought about quitting so many times,” Nembot says.

Then he thought back to his childhood in Cameroon. His mother, Esther, is a princess in the Bafoussam tribe in the mountainous northwest. Her stepbrother is the tribal king. That makes Nembot a prince, meaning on the right side of Colorado’s line, Wood is protected by royalty.

Nembot’s father, Richard, is from the Bangoua, a fiercely male-dominated tribe for whom hardships are opportunities, not excuses. Combine perseverance with machismo and royalty and you have a 6-foot-7, 305-pound sophomore offensive tackle with a nasty streak.

“My mom’s and dad’s tribes, they teach you how to be a man,” Nembot says. “Never give up. They teach you after darkness, there is light.”

Nembot is sitting in a conference room in the Dal Ward Center. His curly hair and massive, chiseled frame have all the trappings of your basic major-college lineman. But his fluent English drips with graceful French lilt and the heavy accents of his parents’ widely different dialects.

He laughs when talking about his royal blood. He doesn’t have a crown. In fact, growing up he barely had clothes. His parents moved out of their tribal towns to Douala, Cameroon’s largest city of 1.3 million people and where they were far from the privileges afforded tribal royalty.

His mother was a seamstress, his father a tax collector. On Christmas, Esther went to her royal family’s plantations and fed the homeless.

It’s why the homeless on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall know Nembot. He once invited a homeless person to dine with him at IHOP.

In Cameroon, they gave instead of received.

“We had to pay for everything,” he says. “We had to struggle for everything we got.”

Pure athleticism What Nembot did have was major athleticism. He didn’t start playing basketball until he was 15. But even then he could elevate his 6-foot-3, 215-pound frame so high, his elbows were over the basket.

At the time, UCLA had a star from Cameroon named Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. He convinced UCLA’s staff he wasn’t the only star in his country. Then-assistant coach Scott Garson came to Cameroon and found Nembot standing out among 500 kids trying to be discovered.

It wasn’t only because he showed up in only his underwear. Garson told Nembot to dunk.

“I took my one step and when I dunk it, I broke the (rim) in my hand,” he says. “We had to stop and switch gyms. He look at me and said, ‘I’m taking you with me.’ “

Then came a cross-country odyssey that made Nembot wonder about this Land of Opportunity hype. UCLA put him at Maine Central Institute, where the chilly August disturbed him nearly as much as the foul-ups over physicals and tuition.

After Nembot slept for a month and a half on the floor of two Cameroonian players for the University of Maine, Garson brought him to Los Angeles with money cobbled together in Cameroon.

Nembot started at Oxnard High School, but public schools couldn’t take his I-20 student visa and he wound up at Brehm Prep School in Illinois. He loved the coach but hated the weather, so Garson brought him back to California, placing him in tiny Montclair Prep in Van Nuys.

He had two problems. His English was limited to the menu at In-N-Out Burger, about the only place he liked after sampling American food.

“It has no flavor, man,” he said. “I’m used to food in Africa where you have to put 17 different spices for it to make sense.”

He was a junior and played hoops as though his father’s tribe were watching.

“I made tons of people bleed on the basketball court,” he says. “When I catch my rebounds, you’d better not be there. When I’m coming down with my rebounds, your mouth, your nose, something is going to pay for it.”

“Always be the strongest” This naturally attracted the football coaches at Montclair Prep, which was moving up from 8-man to 11-man. Assistant coach Reggie Smith Jr. saw this hulking presence walking the hallways.

He gave Nembot some simple advice about football: Never be the one who takes the blow. Deliver first. Funny, that’s one of the mantras of his father’s tribe.

“The main thing is don’t give up and always be the strongest one,” Nembot said. “There is no No. 2. There is only No. 1. May the strong survive.”

Smith saw Nembot’s survival instincts in his first practice. He told Nembot to grab a blocking pad. A 250-pound fullback was going to hit him.

“This fullback hit (Nembot) and knocked the snot out of his nose,” Smith said. “I thought he didn’t want to play anymore. He shook it off and said, ‘Let’s go again.’ The next play, (Nembot) knocked this kid’s helmet so sideways, he was throwing up.”

He played defensive end and Smith had him do everything from jumping rope to running tires to help his footwork. What he didn’t have to teach him was manic aggressiveness.

If you take the man out of Africa, you take the mentality too.

To get him riled up, Smith would fabricate stories of opponents making fun of his English.

“He’s a warrior,” Smith says.

In Nembot’s one full year at Montclair, SuperPrep named him all-Far West and the USCs and UCLAs came calling. One problem: Nembot didn’t know USC from USD.

Instead, he fell in love with Colorado. He didn’t care that Jon Embree was taking over. What Nembot cared about was that CU assistant Mike Tuiasosopo was the only coach who bothered to get a French translator to talk to Nembot’s parents in Cameroon.

Nembot is three years into his college career, two years after switching from defense to offense. He gave up two sacks against Central Arkansas, but he has what Bernardi calls “an NFL body” and upside he hopes parallels Mike MacIntyre’s first-year program.

“Considering when you look at the big picture of where he’s come from, he’s come light-years,” Bernardi says. “But there’s also light-years yet to achieve. It’s a work in progress every day.”

That progress will lead to an ultimate goal. Yes, he wants to right Colorado’s ship. Yes, he wants to put his NFL body in the NFL. But he wants the NFL for one reason.

“That’s the only reason I play football,” he says. “It’s the only reason I haven’t quit. I don’t want to lead that fancy life, being rich, fancy cars and stuff. If I ever get blessed enough to go to the NFL and make money, I just want to build my orphanage and go home and help people.”

After so many years trying to find a home, Stephane Nembot is going home to help the homeless. Risk getting in his way.

More in Sports

Broncos general manager John Elway was reminded of the nice weather, of the fun memories he had some 13 miles west in Palo Alto in college and of course the ones he experienced here in Santa Clara back in 2016.

A tangled mess at Coors Field unraveled early Thursday afternoon as rookie right-hander Jeff Hoffman craned his neck to see home run after home run leave the yard. Before the end, it devolved into a dilemma.